Picasso Backpacker

Right now I am sitting on the roof-top balcony of Picasso Backpacker in Seville, looking past the railing at the stunning cathedral dominating the skyline and less than a five minute walk from here. The hostel itself is located in the most perfect of places: in the center of downtown, close to everything, amd with amazing views.

The atmosphere of the hostel matches well – the white walls with green antiqued accents gives such a bright, cheerful, fun, sunkissed-beach-house feeling. The hallways of the rooms form a triangle around a center courtyard-like opening that, while small, follows all three stories to the roof and, at the bottom, sheds the quintessentially Spanish-feeling lobby with fresh air and sunlight from above. At each window of the rooms overlooking this central opening, flower boxes of hanging plants dangle, reflecting sunlight and soaking the clean white of the hostel with further accents of green.

Out room is shared between five people total: Stacey and me, two girls on holiday from Slovenia, and an Aussie traveling solo. All three seem like decent people. The Australian, although coming off as arrogant and stand-offish at first, turned out to be quite friendly. It was amusing to hear him take matters into his own hands when other rooms down the halls got too raucous in the late hours of the night. In conversation with the Slovenian girls, it emerged that one would be visiting New York and LA the following year. An invitation by Stacey to stay with her while visiting left her giddy with astonishment. Her reaction really was cute to see.

Today was crazy when we tried to book our outgoing overnight train from Granada to Barcelona. All the seats were full, and after working around and around our options, we ended up getting tickets that will take us from Granada to Seville to Madrid to Barcelona. The time frame is about the same, but I don't think we'll be able to get any sleep, since we'll be hopping trains in the middle of the night. Oh well. Tomorrow we explore Seville!